De Paul Gozzi / Corsedimoto.com
The second weekend in Aragón starts well for Michael Rinaldi, in the lead in front of everyone. Jonathan Rea, however, is very fast while the Ducati officials are late.
Michael Rinaldi was fastest in the first practice session of round five of the Superbike at Motorland Aragón. This is the first time in the World Championship that two consecutive rounds are contested on the same track, an atypical situation which could leave deep marks in the ranking. Two rounds were also organized on the same circuit in 2000 at Brands Hatch, but on this occasion, one in August and the other at the end of October. Michael Rinaldi precedes Jonathan Rea by a thousandth, who did 1'49.841, much better than the 1'50.736 he achieved during FP1 a week ago. On this occasion, the fastest was Chaz Davies in 1'50.543, so the track - at least for the moment - seems faster. The Ducatis work in the shadows: the Welshman finished the first outing with the seventh time ahead of Scott Redding.
Influence of temperatures
Last Sunday, in race 2, the drivers found very cool conditions: 21° in the air and 36° on the asphalt. In this FP1 they ran with 23° and 32° air on the track. This weekend, the thermometer should instead get closer to the high temperatures that the official teams experienced during the tests in mid-August. For FP2, which starts today at 15:00 p.m., we are expecting air at 32°: it will be very interesting to analyze the simulations that the best drivers will carry out to prepare for the two “long” races on Saturday and Sunday. During last month's testing, in the heat, the Kawasaki was very strong, not only with Jonathan Rea but also with Alex Lowes who (with the soft tire) was the fastest in the end. This time, the Briton has the third best time and is ahead of the BMW of Tom Sykes who will have to compensate for the disasters of last week.
Ducati's experiences
“It will be an unusual Friday, and unless the temperatures take off, we won't have much to try”, predicts Jonathan Rea. But it is conceivable that some teams, like Ducati, used this FP1 to experiment with new adjustment solutions, in order to try to reduce the gap with Kawasaki, who here with Jonathan Rea won two races out of three. The two Reds conceded almost a second, in a lap which obviously must be analyzed from a racing perspective. Work is also underway at Honda HRC: Álvaro Bautista, protagonist last Sunday (third place) recorded the tenth time. Apprenticeship for beginner Matteo Ferrari on the Ducati Motocorsa missing from the injured Leandro Mercado.
At 15 p.m., we do it again.
FP1 ranking:
Read the original article on Corsedimoto.com
